Monday at the Movies - March 24, 2014

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, a less than unfortunate flick.

Lemony Snickey’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) – Midway through my recent binge-reading (can this be a thing?) of the thirteen books in the series, I stepped aside for a few hours with the film, which loosely adapts the first three books (The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window).  The film and its source material find the Baudelaire orphans (Emily Browning as inventive Violet, Liam Aiken as bookish Klaus, and their baby sister Sunny) bounced from guardian to guardian after their parents perish in a fire.  The first guardian, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), turns out to be a cad of many costumes; the third, Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) is a paranoid whackadoo ruled by her fears.  In between is the kind herpetologist Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly), a character who gets far too little screen time in contrast to his zanier counterparts.  The elephant in the room is Carrey; he’s at his best when he’s restrained (as in The Truman Show), but here his penchant for plasticity plays well with the character’s own fondness for disguises.  Each disguise Count Olaf dons is transparent, but it’s fun to see Carrey step behind Olaf’s theatricality and inhabit these alternate takes on the character (i.e., the meek Stephano or the gruff Captain Sham).  The three Baudelaires are mostly fine, though the film curiously steps away from Violet’s distinctive hair ribbon and Klaus’s definitive glasses.  But one of the most fun bits in the film is what I’ve always held as the cinephile’s true delight – a cast of celebrity cameos, including Streep and Connolly, of course, but also Timothy Spall, Craig Ferguson, and Dustin Hoffman doing his best Stan Lee impression.  Ultimately, the film feels a lot like a Tim Burton film – the best way, I suppose, to describe Snicket’s distinctive prose voice – but as a Burton fan and an admirer of the books, Lemony Snicket’s was engaging enough.  If only the film told us who Beatrice was!

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Brave (2012)

I make no apologies for being a Pixar shill.  Their movies all do exactly what I want a film to do – transport me to a new world, move me in many emotional directions, and leave me with a memorable and complete story (arguably their strongest suit). 

And so it seems insufficient merely to say that Brave, Pixar’s latest offering, is a success.  We (that is, the royal we) assumed this much going in; therefore, it only remains to be seen how much of a success Brave manages to be.

Pixar dips into the princess business with Brave, a Scottish fairy tale about the tomboyish Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) and her resistance to the idea of an arranged marriage.  Rather than obey her mother (Emma Thompson) and father (Billy Connolly), Merida wants to “ride through the glen, firing arrows into the sunset.”  But after a witch’s potion doesn’t quite change her fate the way she envisioned, Merida is left with only two days to make things right and mend her relationship with her mother.

The first thing you’ll notice about Brave, even without seeing it in 3D (which I didn’t, since my love affair with the extra dimension is waning), is how incredible the visual effects are.  The landscapes look natural, misting water might trick you into believing you’re not watching an animated film, and the abundance of detailed curly red hair can only be described as “Pixar showing off.”  With the clan of DunBroch, Pixar takes one more step toward indistinguishable perfection.

The other great Pixar talent on showcase here is their ability to create emotive, expressive nonhuman characters.  We know that they’re gifted at human faces (or even semi-human, as in the case of the Toy Story films), but the bear characters in Brave especially manage to communicate human feelings and motivations; better, none of the bears are indistinguishable, as each has a unique body language that allows us to know precisely – even if it’s a detail as fine as eye color – which bear is which.

The best example of nonverbal filmmaking, though, comes from the scene-stealing triplets Hamish, Harris, and Hubert.  These three never speak, but through their faces and their body language we know from scene one what these three rascals are like.  They’re crowd-pleasers, instant favorites, and a perfect example of what Pixar does better than any other animation studio – tact.  If this were a Dreamworks film, for example, we’d see a franchise around these three, running the joke into the ground.  (As it is, I’m kept awake at nights by the haunting specter of the “Afro Circus” song.)  But directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman wisely keep the boys in check (at least, as in check as three little hellions can be kept).  But if the film merits a rewatch, it’s at least to keep an eye on these three.

As always, the voice cast matches well, although the small setting doesn’t allow for many trademark Pixar cameos (but John Ratzenberger is in there).  MacDonald is spunky and sassy without shortchanging the emotional moments when her character pivots, Thompson is stern but frustrated with her daughter, and Connolly seems to be channeling Brian Cox as the patriarch, reining in his madcap stand-up inflection for a (slightly) more dignified king.

It’s not Toy Story 3 by any stretch of the imagination – I maintain that that is Pixar’s crowning achievement, if only because I still cry just thinking about it – but Brave is another solid entry in the Pixar catalog, fun for the whole family and delightfully entertaining even for those of us who ought to be too old for this sort of thing.

PS – make certain you stick around after the credits.  No, Nick Fury doesn’t recruit Merida to join The Avengers (they already have an archer, after all), but the stinger scene does tie up a loose end.

Brave is rated PG “for some scary action and rude humor.”  There’s an evil monster bear running around, growling and mauling.  In addition, there are a surprising number of nude rear ends (all played for laughs) in this one, as well as a booger joke.  I think the latter two are a first for Pixar.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

As a once-was fan of the iconic and long-running Chris Carter sci-fi series, the announcement that a new X-Files film was en route made a small part of me giggly with excitement. Most of me, though, had moved on, wishing more that Sydney Bristow (from the long-since cancelled Alias) or even just Jack Bauer or the cast of Lost might show up in cinemaplexes. (Heck, I'll take that Arrested Development film any day, Ron Howard.)

So my concerns that perhaps I'd outgrown the paranormal excursions of FBI Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) stuck with me for the entire runtime of the film. The film picks up a few years after the series concluded, with Mulder & Scully officially retired from the FBI. But when a shady ex-con priest (Billy Connolly, who's occasionally spooky) has a vision of an abducted FBI agent, the Feds call in the original paranormal specialists, and the X-Files are re-opened once more.

The film tries to stand on its own, with only essential information carried over from the original series - Mulder is the believer, Scully the skeptic. But there are brief references peppered throughout the film that novices (and X-Files apostates like myself) will crane their brains to understand. Additionally, a major cast member from the original series makes a brief return near the finish of the film, but only fans of the TV show will find this cast appearance of any merit; others will query why the dramatic music and camera angle.

As someone whose memories of the series were fairly fuzzy, I realized that the film feels a lot like an episode of the series and is paced in much the same way. However, the movie is twice as long as an episode of the television show and at times feels like it. It's as though the filmmakers had only an hour of material and had to pad their script with longing gazes, dramatic panoramic aerial shots, and almost too many retreads of the "I believe/I don't believe" dialogue that X-heads have come to cherish as much as the Cigarette-Smoking Man (who sadly doesn't make an appearance here) loves his smokes.

Duchovny and Anderson (who's decried her difficulty remounting the "unicycle" of her character) step comfortably into their characters like a kicked-in pair of shoes, comfortable and familiar despite showing a few signs of aging. But the performances are strong, the characterizations convincing (if hit home a tad too much), and the chemistry still striking. The best performance, though he's only given a bit to work with, is Connolly's supporting role as Father Joe, the allegedly psychic priest with a damning past. The downturn, though, is that much of Connolly's performance is shrouded in "Is he or isn't he?" ambiguity, which the actor does well to play both sides and never truly give the audience a leg up on any one theory. As "new" agents, Amanda Peet and Xzibit do little more than become a younger Mulder and Scully, and their characterizations are neither convincing nor compelling.

Part of the main problem of the film, though it's an interesting if a bit overlong, is its ambiguity. When done right (Mulholland Drive on film, Watchmen in text), ambiguity can be a thought-provoking technique which keeps the audience thinking long after the credits - or the back cover - fall into place. However, I doubt I'll be thinking about the moral ramifications of some of the film's factors. I had fun watching the film - I enjoyed the film's sci-fi aspect and the gory subplot suitable for the TV series - but it's not something I'd put on my favorites list.

Diehard fans of the TV show, though, will probably love it. For me, I think I'll stick with the other film that opened on July 18, 2008.

Courtesy of the MPAA, The X-Files: I Want to Believe is rated "PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material." The film is more disturbing than violent (although there's some depiction of unorthodox medical practices), with a few well-crafted kidnapping-centric scenes that recall Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. I'm still at a loss as to what "thematic material" is, so I suppose this refers to the movie having a plot, drama, and suspense.